


White Chocolate S'mores and YouTube Survivalists

by CrashDevil (cjdevlin19)



Series: Crash Into Me [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Pining, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 17:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18761428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjdevlin19/pseuds/CrashDevil
Summary: Sam and Dean run into Cassie while coming off a skinwalker hunt in the woods of lower Alabama. She’s there camping with her husband and his friends. It doesn’t take long for Dean to form an opinion of Mike, or Mike to form an opinion of him. Oh, and Sam’s got an opinion of Dean’s interactions with the witch, of course.~~~~~~~~~~~~~“Huh.”“What? What now, Sam?”“I’ve just never seen you like this over a married woman. Usually, you see a ring and shut it down.”“Yeah, well, she deserves better than that jerk over there with his YouTube survivalist training and his air mattress and his douchebag goatee and… how he talks to her, man. It’s not okay.”“It’s also not your business, Dean.”“Yeah, I know,” he grumbled. “She’s just… better than that guy.”“That might be true, but she married him. They’ve got a kid.”“He makes her cry.”Sam gave a slightly exasperated sigh. “And that’s between them. This isn’t something you can save her from, Dean, it’s her life.”Dean nodded, solemnly. “Still don’t like it.”





	White Chocolate S'mores and YouTube Survivalists

**Story Warnings** : pining, little bit of background angst, self-esteem issues, emotional abuse

* * *

“I think I hate the woods, Sam. I mean, I wish people would stop trekking out into the trees to get eaten by monsters so we wouldn’t have to trek out to kill monsters.” Sam took a deep breath and allowed Dean to keep complaining. “That way, we wouldn’t have to deal with mosquitoes and gnats and shit. And why is Alabama so humid, dude?” The Winchesters stepped off of the trail and headed for the rock and mud parking lot where the Impala sat. “Can’t wait to get back to the motel, take a nice long shower and check you for ticks.”

They passed a small grey Toyota, a large green Ford pickup and a small black Saturn SUV before reaching the Impala. “I  _thought_  that car looked familiar!” a soft, feminine voice said, causing Sam and Dean to turn toward the Saturn.

Dean smiled as his eyes fell on light blond hair with dark blond roots pulled into a high ponytail, bright green eyes behind thick black glasses and a gorgeous smile. “Cassie! What are you doin’ here, kiddo?”

“Camping with my husband and his friends. Are you-” She looked around and lowered her voice a little. “-hunting? Should we leave?”

Dean gave her a reassuring smile. “It was a skinwalker. We dealt with it. It’s safe.” He suddenly realized Sam’s confusion and gestured to the younger Winchester. “Cassie, this is my brother, Sam. Cassie’s the witch that helped us with the rakshasa hunt in Walton last month,” Dean explained.

“Oh! Yeah, Dean told me about you.” Sam offered his hand which she shook. “Thanks for that. We would’ve been up a creek without those herbs.”

She blushed and looked at her boots. “Oh, it was nothing, really.”

“So, where’s the munchkin?” Dean asked.

“Oh, she’s with my parents. She’s not  _quite_  old enough to enjoy camping, yet.”

Dean smirked. “Well, give ‘er a few years.”

Cassie pushed her glasses up her nose and bit the inside of her lip. “So, hunt’s done, you guys are heading out?”

Sam opened his mouth to say ‘yes’ but Dean shook his head. “We don’t  _have_  to be,” he responded, quickly. Sam’s eyebrows tucked down in confusion. “I mean, we didn’t bring any camping gear, but if you wanted us to hang out for a few hours, make some s’mores and shit, we could do that.”

“Well, we’ve actually got an extra tent if you wanted to stay longer,” she offered, her eyes lighting up. Her voice stayed reserved, though, like she was expecting rejection. “One of Mike’s friends didn’t show so we have a three-person easy-up that was just gonna stay in the car. I mean, y’all would have to curl in on yourselves a bit, but I think you could manage.”

“Sounds awesome.”

Cassie’s smiled brightened with excitement. “Hey, Mom Bear, what’s taking so long?” The smile faltered, but was immediately replaced with a fake one as a skinny man with sandy blond hair, a scruffy attempt at a beard, and blue eyes came around the SUV to stand next to her. He was a little shorter than Dean, but much slimmer and with absolutely no muscle tone. There was intimidation in his eyes and he put his arm possessively around his wife.

“Sorry. I was just talking to these guys. It’s such a small world. This is Dean. We met at ‘ _Elements_ ’ last month.”

The man scoffed as Dean grudgingly offered his hand. “You shop at ‘ _Elements_ ’?”

“Yeah. Why’d you say it like that?” Dean asked as he shook the man’s hand.

“What, you believe that crap? Magic and monsters?”

“It was Mike, right?” Dean asked, letting the other man’s hand go and shoving his into his pockets. “Yeah, I believe that ‘ _crap_ ’ and so does your wife.”

“Of course she does!” Mike laughed. “It’s silly chick shit and she’s a silly chick.”

Dean watched as the short blond woman bit the inside of her lip and rubbed the pad of her right thumb against the side of her middle finger. The nails of her left hand were digging into her palm. She was wound so tight in her husband’s presence and the man didn’t even seem to notice. It was almost hard to imagine this was the same woman who threatened Dean with an arsenal a month before.

“Sam and Dean wanted to camp but they don’t have a tent, so I offered them Joey’s for the night. I hope you don’t mind.”

Anger flashed across Mike’s face and Cassie’s teeth dug harshly into her bottom lip. “Yeah, no, that’s cool. The more, the merrier.” Mike cleared his throat. “Let me go tell Will and Chris that we’ve got two extra dudes.” He put his hand out and Cassie set the car keys in his hand like it was automatic. He beeped the SUV and clipped the keys to a buckle attached to his belt. “Come see me over here.”

“What are we doing, Dean?” Sam asked as Cassie and Mike walked away. “What happened to you hating the woods and wanting a shower to get the sweat and humidity off of you?”

“We can check each other for ticks tomorrow, now shut up. I’m tryin’ to eavesdrop.”

He didn’t catch much from the couple’s conversation. He heard “I didn’t mean to”, “I know that”, “I’m not trying anything”, and “I’m  _sorry_ ’ from her, but he only heard “Someone like you”, “In front of my friends” and “Slut” from Mike. It wasn’t enough to put together a narrative, just enough to make Dean want to put his fist through the scrawny man’s face.

Mike stomped toward the trail leading to the ‘primitive camping’ sites, leaving Cassie to pick up all of the camping equipment herself. She was on the verge of tears as she bent down to grab a half dozen straps to try to lift everything and attach it to her body. Dean rushed to help her, tossing the straps for two tents over his head before grabbing the cooler.

“So, this camping trip something special or-” Dean asked.

Cassie sniffled. “Nah. Mike’s friends just got him hooked on those YouTube survivalist channels. They wanted to get some hands-on experience before the zombie apocalypse.”

“Sounds like a guys’ trip,” Sam said, picking up a backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. “Why are you here?”

“I haven’t slept in nature in years. My people aren’t supposed to spend so much time indoors. It’s bad for the soul. Besides, s’mores don’t taste right from a barbecue grill.” She smiled at the brothers. “Thank you for helping.”

Dean shook his head. “It’s nothing. Don’t mention it.”  _ ***Your dickbag husband shouldn’t have left you to carry all this shit, by yourself, but whatever.***_  As they started to walk down the trail to the campsite, Dean kept stealing glances at Cassie. “So, how’d you and Mike meet, huh?”

“High school. Junior year English class. Well, I mean, I noticed him way back in eighth grade, but I didn’t talk to him until English III… he sat behind me… cheated off my tests.”

“That’s…” Dean licked his bottom lip, changing tactics. “So, you’ve been together since high school?”

“Nah. We dated the summer between Junior and Senior year, but he left me for this chick, Trista. We got back together about two years later. October ‘09.”

“So, you’ve only been together a few years then?”

“Yeah. It feels like forever, though,” she said with a tight smile.

When they arrived at the campsite, Mike was furiously sawing a stick and string bow back and forth, trying to start a fire. Two much larger guys were cheering him on. The Winchesters set down the equipment and crossed their arms over their chests as they watched. Cassie sat on the cooler and absentmindedly chewed on her thumbnail and rubbed her pentacle necklace as one of the larger men took over the bow. The third didn’t have any better luck than the first two. Dean was about to offer his Zippo when Cassie stood.

“Can I try?”

Mike and his friends looked up at her derisively. “You think you can get it when we couldn’t?” Mike spat out.

“I just wanna  _try_ ,” she said, quietly.

“Let ‘er try,” Dean demanded. “It’s not like she could do worse than you guys.”

The bigger of Mike’s friends dropped the bow and rock to the dirt and moved out of the way. She swallowed and rubbed her necklace again. “Prometheus, grant me the seed of flame,” she whispered, going to her knees and picking up the equipment. Half of the men watching her were expecting her to fail, but she didn’t pay attention to the them. Fast, even, smooth movements of the bow brought her an ember, but Mike had gotten an ember, too, just not a flame. “Hephaestus, fill my lungs with dragon’s breath,” she whispered, dropping the ember onto the kindling and letting out a slow, steady breath through pursed lips. The ember burned brighter and hotter, and on the second breath the kindling burst into flame.

She gave a proud smile as she set the fire into the prearranged sticks in the fire pit, but Mike just growled out something about ‘Beginners luck’. “That was pretty cool,” the smaller of Mike’s friends said. “Hot dogs?”

“That was awesome!” Dean called her attention and smiled brightly at her. “Our Dad could do that, but I never got the hang of it. It’s a definite skill, kiddo.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Can you stop with the ‘kiddo’, please? I’m not  _that_  much younger than you.”

“A decade. A decade  _is_  that much younger than me, but, okay.” He nodded. “‘Crash’, then?”

“What is wrong with my name?” She chuckled. “I mean, I’m cool with Crash, that’s been my nickname since I was, like, two, but what’cha got against ‘Cassie’, huh?”

“I got my reasons, Crash.”

“He’s got an ex named ‘Cassie’,” Sam filled in.

“Oh! Okay, I guess that makes sense. I’ve got an ex named Sam, but that name’s so common, I’ve gotten where I can meet someone and not automatically think of her.”

Dean’s eyes shot to hers. “ _Her_?”

“Yeah-huh. You should put up your tent while we get hot dogs skewered and stuff.” She pulled the cooler closer to the fire and started to set up stuff for food.

“You like her,” Sam whispered as he helped Dean set up the tent.

“What, Crash?” Dean shrugged. “She’s all right.”

“No, I mean it, Dean. How you look at her-”

“ _So_?” Dean snapped in a whisper.

“Well, beside the fact that she’s married?” Sam shot a look over his shoulder. “She just doesn’t seem like your type.”

“I have a type?” Dean stood straight and sighed. “I know, man. I usually don’t have anything nice to say about a witch, but Crash is not a normal witch. She’s not powered up or anything. I don’t think she’s ever had a single successful spell. She’s not even especially religious about it. She’s just…”

“That isn’t what I meant about your type, dude.” Sam sighed. “It’s just rare that I see you wanting a woman who’s bigger than a size 10.”

Dean’s face twisted with offense. “Dude, how shallow do you think I am? It’s not about her body type. It’s her personality. She’s this short little badass and-”

“ _Her_?”

“Yeah, when she’s not with  _him_. When I met her at the magic shop, she was like  _that_ , all shy and shit but later… when we went to their apartment to get the herbs, she was… it was like she flipped a switch and Crash Badass came out. She’s got a bunch of swords and knives and shit and she stepped to  _me_. You know, she might’ve made a fine hunter.”

“Huh.”

“ _What_? What now, Sam?”

“I’ve just never seen you like this over a married woman. Usually, you see a ring and shut it down.”

“Yeah, well, she deserves better than that jerk over there with his YouTube survivalist training and his air mattress and his douchebag goatee and… how he talks to her, man. It’s not okay.”

“It’s also not your  _business_ , Dean.”

“Yeah, I know,” he grumbled. “She’s just… better than that guy.”

“That might be true, but she married him. They’ve got a kid.”

“He makes her cry.”

Sam gave a slightly exasperated sigh. “And that’s between  _them_. This isn’t something you can save her from, Dean, it’s  _her_  life.”

Dean nodded, solemnly. “Still don’t like it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, Dean, what do they call boy witches? Is it wizard, warlock, manwich?” Mike asked as he squirted ketchup onto a hotdog bun.

Dean licked his lips and leaned forward. “Nah, it’s just ‘witch’. It’s a gender-neutral term, dude, always has been.” He tilted his head and clicked his teeth. “And I’m not a witch, by the way.”

“Well, what are you, then?” the bigger of Mike’s friends, Will, asked.

“What are  _you_?” Sam asked.

“I’m an atheist. I think anyone who believes in  _any_  god is deluded.”

Dean watched Cassie’s face shift from apprehensive to anxious. She’d had this conversation before. Will had told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was an idiot for believing in  _anything_ , Dean was sure of it. “What about you two? What do you believe?”

“I’m agnostic. I can’t know if there’s a God or Heaven, until I got there… or don’t,” Chris, the other friend said.

“I’m spiritual, but not religious. Organized religion is a sham.” Mike took a bite of his hotdog and Dean took a breath.

“And if I said I’d been to Heaven? That I’ve met angels? What would you jerks say to that?”

Cassie leaned forward and yanked open the cooler before anyone could respond to Dean’s questions. “Hey, s’mores! Have you ever had a white chocolate s’more?” She pulled out a Ziplock bag with a bar of Lindt white chocolate in it. “See, Aria’s allergic to milk chocolate so we had to make hers out of white chocolate when we introduced her to them and I tried one and I’m in love. Wanna try?” Her desperation to cut off the confrontation was palpable.

“Love to, sweetheart,” Dean said, sitting back as she grabbed marshmallows and graham crackers and started to build the s’mores.

“We want the normal ones,” Mike said, opening the cooler and tossing a Hershey’s bar at her.

“Yeah, okay, Dad Bear.”

Dean had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. ‘Mom Bear’, ‘Dad Bear’, he supposed Aria was ‘Baby Bear’… it should have been cute, but it just made him want to puke, and not in that ‘this is too sweet’ way. It made him wanna puke in a ‘just took a drink of ipecac’ way. In an ‘I just drank a bunch of antifreeze’ way. After watching Mike interact with Crash, he felt it was sickly sweet and fake.

_***Shit. Sam’s right. I like her.*** _

She handed the first white chocolate s’more to Dean, who bit into it immediately giving absolutely no thought to the fact that the marshmallow was still burning hot. “Holy shit! Tha’sh amazshing.”

She smiled brightly at him as she handed one to Sam. “Right?!”

“Don’t take this the wrong way but I’m so happy your kid’s allergic to chocolate, because I never woulda thought of doing a white chocolate s’more.” Dean shoved the rest of his confection in his mouth as Sam took a small bite of his and Crash put another two marshmallows over the flame.

“I know what you mean. I never woulda considered it, either, but you gotta adapt when you’re dealing with kids.”

Dean nodded and smiled at her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dean couldn’t sleep. And it wasn’t the little tent that was far too small for two men over six foot, or the persistent screaming of the cicadas or the humidity sticking his clothes to his body… it was Crash and her husband whispering in their tent.

_“You know he’s being nice because he pities you.”_

_“I know.”_

_“You fawning over him is embarrassing for both of us… and him.”_

_“I know. I’m sorry.”_

_“You remember your vows?”_

_“Of course I do. I wrote them.”_

_“As long as we’re grateful to have each other, nothing can get between us, Cassie. You still grateful for me?”_

_“Yes. I’m not trying anything with Dean. He’s just a nice guy and I wanted to be nice to him. I promise, that’s it. I know a guy like him would never be interested in someone like me.”_

_“Three hundred pounds, married with a kid? Yeah, you aren’t even on his radar.”_

_“I’m not three hundred pounds, Mike.”_

_“Closer to three hundred than two hundred.”_

_“Yeah. You’re right.”_

_“Don’t cry. You just need to get back on your diet… and ‘cheating’ on your diet.”_

_“Yeah. I’ll start doing it again. It was working before.”_

_“Exactly! You got down to one-eighty for the wedding. You looked so hot back then.”_

_“Yeah. I’m… I’m tired. Let’s get some sleep.”_

_“Night, Mom Bear.”_

_“Night, Dad Bear.”_

Dean wasn’t sure what the end of that conversation was about but he knew it wasn’t anything good. The more he thought about it, the more it upset him. Mike had disparaged Crash about her weight, made her feel like she wasn’t hot, which she  _was_ , and used Dean’s name to do it.  _‘You aren’t even on his radar’_. Crash was his whole view screen, right now. If it weren’t for that skinny jerk in the tent with her, he’d have invited  _himself_  into her tent.

But Sam was right. There was a simple white gold band on her left ring finger and a baby back in Florida. She had a family. She might have picked a dick to make that family with, but she had a family, regardless. Dean wouldn’t ruin that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Crash was already awake by the time Dean pulled himself out of the tent, but she was the only one. “Mornin’.”

She smiled at him from her spot sitting on the cooler. She had a spiral notebook in her lap and she shut it when she saw him. “Mornin’. How’d you sleep?”

“I’ve slept in worse conditions. What’cha writing?” he leaned against a tree and looked across the campsite at her.

“Oh, just a story.” She twisted and shoved the notebook in the purple backpack next to her. “You hungry? We’ve got some sausages.” She thumped her fingers against the cooler.

“You gonna have some?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I already ate. Filled up on marshmallows when I woke up.”

Dean tilted his head and raised his eyebrows at her. She showed no sign of recanting what was obviously a lie, so he just shook his head. “Nah. I’m gonna wake Sammy and we’re gonna break down the tent, head back to the car. I’m aching for a shower.”

“Oh. Okay. I get it.”

He sighed, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He took a deep breath and tried again. “Look, you know… you got my number. You know you can call for anything, right?”

Her eyebrows came down and pushed her glasses away from her eyes, so she pushed them back up her nose and shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“If something’s wrong, Crash… if you’re hurt or scared, you can call me. I may not always be able to come help, and I’m honestly shitty when it comes to advice, but if you need to talk… about  _anything_ … you can call me.”

“Thank you?”

“And you’re still good with me texting you sometimes, right?”

“If you  _want_  to.”

“Of course I do. I wouldn’t have gotten your number if I didn’t wanna text, Crash. Just haven’t had much in the way of downtime recently, but as soon as I have a free minute, I’m shootin’ you a message, okay?” She nodded, a confusion in her eyes like she was warring with herself between what Mike and her rational brain were telling her and what her heart and Dean, himself, were telling her. “Hey… your husband’s a dick. Don’t let him make you doubt yourself, all right?”

Her lips twitched into a small smile. “He’s not that bad.”

“I dunno. He’s pretty bad. And he looks like Shaggy from _Scooby-Doo_.” She smiled and held back a giggle. “There’s that pretty smile. I’m gonna go wake up my brother. You should eat something.”

Dean and Sam broke the tent down and put it back in its bag, and Dean insisted on taking it back to the Saturn so that Crash wouldn’t have to carry it back once they were done camping. Cassie locked the tent back into the trunk and walked to the Impala with Dean. “I’ll talk to you later?”

Dean nodded. “Text me when you get out of the woods, okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks for hanging with us last night. I had fun.”

“Maybe next time we can do something  _I_ enjoy… without Mike and his friends.”

“Maybe. You’ll have to find your way back to Florida for some shit like that.”

Dean nodded. “I’ll make it happen. Come ‘ere,” he said, with open arms. She looked mildly shocked, but she went for the hug, taking the embrace and returning it by wrapping her arms around his waist. “I’ll talk to you later, Crash.”

“Hold you to it,” she promised as he pulled away and dropped into the driver’s seat of the Impala. She waved as Dean reversed and headed for the motel.

“I’m sorry, Dean. It sucks that-” Sam started.

“It’s cool, Sam. I just want to make sure she stays safe, that’s all.” Sam nodded, knowingly. “Don’t give me that look, dude.”

“No look.” Sam smiled and looked out the window beside him. “I call dibs on first shower.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Bitch.”

“Jerk.”


End file.
